Part 11 (2/2)

By Noel

(Author of 'A Dream of Ancient Ancestors.') He isn't really--but he put it in to make it seem more real.

Hark! what is that noise of rolling Waves and thunder in the air?

'Tis the death-knell of the sailors And officers and pa.s.sengers of the good s.h.i.+p Malabar.

It was a fair and lovely noon When the good s.h.i.+p put out of port And people said 'ah little we think How soon she will be the elements' sport.'

She was indeed a lovely sight Upon the billows with sails spread.

But the captain folded his gloomy arms, Ah--if she had been a life-boat instead!

See the captain stern yet gloomy Flings his son upon a rock, Hoping that there his darling boy May escape the wreck.

Alas in vain the loud winds roared And n.o.body was saved.

That was the wreck of the Malabar, Then let us toll for the brave.

NOEL.

------------ GARDENING NOTES

It is useless to plant cherry-stones in the hope of eating the fruit, because they don't!

Alice won't lend her gardening tools again, because the last time Noel left them out in the rain, and I don't like it. He said he didn't.

------------ SEEDS AND BULBS

These are useful to play at shop with, until you are ready. Not at dinner-parties, for they will not grow unless uncooked. Potatoes are not grown with seed, but with chopped-up potatoes. Apple trees are grown from twigs, which is less wasteful.

Oak trees come from acorns. Every one knows this. When Noel says he could grow one from a peach stone wrapped up in oak leaves, he shows that he knows nothing about gardening but marigolds, and when I pa.s.sed by his garden I thought they seemed just like weeds now the flowers have been picked.

A boy once dared me to eat a bulb.

Dogs are very industrious and fond of gardening. Pincher is always planting bones, but they never grow up. There couldn't be a bone tree.

I think this is what makes him bark so unhappily at night. He has never tried planting dog-biscuit, but he is fonder of bones, and perhaps he wants to be quite sure about them first.

------------ SAM REDFERN, OR THE BUSHRANGER'S BURIAL

By d.i.c.ky

------------ CHAPTER IV AND LAST

This would have been a jolly good story if they had let me finish it at the beginning of the paper as I wanted to. But now I have forgotten how I meant it to end, and I have lost my book about Red Indians, and all my Boys of England have been sneaked. The girls say 'Good riddance!' so I expect they did it. They want me just to put in which Annie married, but I shan't, so they will never know.

We have now put everything we can think of into the paper. It takes a lot of thinking about. I don't know how grown-ups manage to write all they do. It must make their heads ache, especially lesson books.

Albert-next-door only wrote one chapter of the serial story, but he could have done some more if he had wanted to. He could not write out any of the things because he cannot spell. He says he can, but it takes him such a long time he might just as well not be able. There are one or two things more. I am sick of it, but Dora says she will write them in.

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